World

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Israeli forces struck near a hospital it operates in southern Gaza on Thursday, killing several people, a day after another deadly Israeli attack in front of the same medical facility.On Wednesday, the health ministry in the enclave said nearly two dozen people had been killed after Israeli forces struck the entrance of the facility, Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis. The Israeli military has announced an expanded offensive in Khan Younis, the biggest city in southern Gaza.Most of those killed on Wednesday were displaced people who were seeking shelter in and around the hospital, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Some 14,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering at Al-Amal, according to the World Health Organiza...

One day last September, a team of scientists clambered onto a small boat and set out into the Salish Sea, searching for an endangered population of orcas. The Southern Resident killer whales, one of several distinct orca communities that inhabit the Pacific Northwest, can be elusive, so the researchers were delighted to find a small pod of them. But as they drew closer, a putrid smell washed over the boat.The scientists eyed each other with suspicion before it dawned on them: The odor was coming from the clouds of mist that the whales were expelling from their blowholes. “Everybody is allowed to have bad breath every now and then, but this was not just bad breath,” said Dr. Hendrik Nollens, the vice president of wildlife health for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, who was on the boat. ...

Christmas lights flickered on ahead of schedule. Families sang carols a little sooner. And the first presents of the season — by tradition hidden under a pillow or in a boot — appeared two weeks early.Of Ukraine’s many Western-oriented changes, put in place bit by bit since independence and accelerated during the war, one brought special joy this year: Christmas came early.After centuries of marking the holiday on Jan. 7 under the Julian church calendar, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church this year formally switched to celebrating on Dec. 25 with most of the rest of Europe — and pointedly not with Russia.For 6-year-old Drynka, that meant practicing carols early and enjoying the excitement of receiving gifts like a Rainbow High doll and a paint set two weeks earlier she did than last year.“I lov...

Read: The 10 Best Books of 2023Best TV ShowsNathan Fielder, the Canadian actor known for his deadpan delivery, is back with a dark comedy called “The Curse.” Here’s a trailer. It’s streaming on Paramount+ Canada. (Mr. Fielder was an executive producer on “How To With John Wilson,” another show that critics say is worth your time.)Read: Best TV Shows of 2023Best Movies“Past Lives,” the debut film by the South Korean-Canadian director Celine Song, is “an examination of destiny, chance, love and the invisible thread that binds one soul to the next,” writes Alissa Wilkinson, a movie critic at The Times. (I enjoyed watching this film at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, which has made it available for rent. You can also catch it on streaming platforms in Canada.)An honorable mention on the lis...

Fourteen people were killed and more than 20 others wounded in a shooting rampage at Charles University in the Czech Republic on Thursday, the authorities said. The gunman, a 24-year-old student in world history at the university, also killed himself after the shooting spree in central Prague.The police say they believe he first killed his father in their family home in a village near the town of Kladno, outside of Prague, Andrew Moravcik, a spokesman for the Czech police, said in an interview. Some of the injured were in critical condition, he added.The gunman was partly identified by the police as David K. European police officials often give only a first name and last initial for privacy reasons. Speaking at a news conference in Prague, the chief of the national police force, Martin Von...

The prospects for passing legislation to speed military aid to Ukraine this year are fading, as Republicans balk at striking a quick deal on immigration policy changes they have demanded in exchange for allowing the bill to move forward.After a weekend of intensive bipartisan border talks yielded progress but no breakthrough, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, acknowledged on Monday that negotiators were still far from completing a deal.“It’s going to take some more time to get it done,” he said on the Senate floor on Monday afternoon, laying out plans for the week that made no mention of any votes on the aid package for Ukraine.That was a reversal from last week, when Mr. Schumer announced he would delay the Senate’s holiday break and keep the chamber in ...

Roman Catholic church officials said an Israeli military sniper shot and killed a mother and daughter on Saturday inside a church compound in northern Gaza where many Palestinian Christian families have taken refuge.The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said that “one was killed as she tried to carry the other to safety” in the compound of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City. Seven more people were shot and wounded while trying to protect others there, the patriarchate said in a statement on Saturday.“No warning was given, no notification was provided,” the patriarchate said. “They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish.”The patriarchate said Israeli rockets were fired at a convent in the church compound earlier on Saturday, destroying the building’s sole generator and fue...

On his first day in office, President Biden sent a bill to Congress to “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system.” Nearly three years later, he is considering sweeping restrictions on migration in exchange for aid to Ukraine and Israel.It is the latest sign of how drastically the politics of immigration have shifted in the United States, where polls suggest there is growing support, even inside the president’s own party, for border measures once denounced by Democrats and championed by former President Donald Trump.But it is also a gamble for Mr. Biden, who risks walking away from some of the most deeply held principles of the Democratic Party and angering key parts of his core constituency, such as progressives and young voters.“There’s no doubt there’s been a shift ...

The main reason Israel’s heavy bombardment of Gaza for nine weeks has not pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt is that country’s heavily fortified border and Cairo’s ironclad determination to keep it closed.But pressure is building. Israel has been pushing Gaza’s 2.2 million residents relentlessly south as its forces seek to destroy Hamas’s military wing and its infrastructure, and about 85 percent of the population has been displaced. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are now living in squalid, cramped conditions in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost region, right along the border with Egypt.The bleak conditions have increased fears that the border with Egypt could be breached, allowing large number of Palestinian refugees to enter Egypt, potentially destabilizing an Ar...

A Canadian province known for the warmth and hospitality shown to thousands of airline passengers diverted after the Sep. 11 attacks has again hosted hundreds of surprise visitors — this time, because of what Delta Air Lines described as a “mechanical issue” with one of its planes.The company said the flight, which left Amsterdam on Sunday afternoon and was bound for Detroit, was forced to land in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, a coastal town of around 8,000 people in the northeastern province of Newfoundland and Labrador, after an engine de-icer stopped working.The 270 passengers, three pilots and seven flight attendants all spent the night in an army barracks in the town, a Delta spokesman said by email.“Crew duty times were impacted due to weather and runway conditions at the Goose Bay airport...